'MELENCOLIA.

'For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.'-Eccles. i. 18.

IN speaking of. this text last Sunday, we considered only the sorrow which may arise from the increase of scientific knowledge, and its remedy. We found that the idea of the German artist in his plate of Melencolia' was at the root of the whole question. In moments of quiet thought, when, as is the case with Dürer's great Genius of Knowledge and Toil, we are suddenly arrested and pass into the region of speculative questioning, the contrast between the possibility of demonstrating truth, for example, in the science of numbers, and the impossibility of demonstrating the truth, for example, of immortality, weaves a subtile sadness for our souls.

But there are other causes for melancholy; and it is interesting to see what the Nuremberg artist says about them. The great genius, for I must repeat the description, sits in an hour of pause from labour, her head resting on her hand, looking forth in resolute but infinite sadness of thought into the world of being. Her eyes see, but see nothing of the things around her; her arm rests on a great book and her

hand grasps the open compasses. open compasses. The instruments of the carpenter, geometer, and alchemist lie at her feet, where also sleeps a great wolf-hound. Over her head the square window in the house is divided into sixteen. squares, each filled with a number. In whatever way you add these-horizontally, vertically, or diagonallythey make the same sum, thirty-four; this, with the poised balances, expresses that scientific certainty of which we have spoken. By the side of this square hangs an hour-glass whose sands are half run, and a bell. Seated on a millstone leaning against the house, is a small winged boy with tablet and pencil. Far off, beyond the platform, the sea is seen, with castles and towns on the shore: the sun has set, and a fiery comet, whose rays fill the whole sky, menaces the world below, but over it arches a rainbow, and across it flies a bat with outstretched wings bearing a scroll, on which is written Melencolia.'

What did Albert Dürer mean by this? I said last Sunday that the first thing to remember in explaining the picture (which is, indeed, an illustration of my text and of the feeling of this whole book of Ecclesiastes) was that the Angel of Knowledge and Labour was represented in that hour of sudden arrest of work which comes not rarely upon our life, when carried away in a moment into the world of speculative meditation we ask ourselves, What has my labour done for others, or for me?—what is my knowledge worth? The temper of such an hour is one of melancholy. It arose, partly, as we have seen, from the contrast of one certainty with many uncertainties, and the terrible irony in that.

It arises, next, from the thought that life is too short, even for the most ardent labour, to wrest from the bosom of nature, or the ocean of the soul, a thousandth part of their secrets. Before we have, as it were, crossed the threshold of the temple of knowledge, the sands in the glass above our head are half run, and we place the bell there, in readiness to toll our requiem. Man is not, but is like a thing of nought; his time passeth away like a shadow.' This is one of the elements of such an hour of melancholy. And it is the increase of knowledge which has given it all its serious pain. For as long as we knew little and flitted from one enjoyment of sense to another, finding all our pleasure in the excitements of mere animal being, life had no noble value in it. We wished to live, because it was pleasant to live, and when we thought of death, it was, not with the solemn melancholy of which we speak, but either with a light laugh as not realising it, or, if realising it, with a bitter anger. But as our knowledge increased, and our labour became more earnest, and we felt that there were endless capabilities in us of attaining the first and of making the second useful to man-then, in an hour of sudden and secluded thought, when we realised that our life was more than half over, that all the mighty interests, hopes, and powers which had come to us, and made existence a scene of dramatic passion, were soon to be paralysed with age and smitten with death-then, the tide of a noble melancholy floated in upon the soul. Our work rests, our books are clasped, our soul looks through our eyes far into the future. Death comes,'

we think; is all I have done for others and learnt for myself lost? Why may I not live to finish my work, to complete and round my knowledge? If death be all, then the increase of my knowledge is the increase of my sorrow.'

The remedy and the answer lie in the teaching of Christ. He has brought, it is true, upon the world, an increased dread of death, for He has deepened the sense of moral responsibility. But in deepening responsibility He has also brought upon the world an increased delight in life, because He has made life more earnest, active, and progressive. Duties which have a clear fulfilment possible, aspirations which have a true hope of being realised-these make life interesting, alive, even passionate. The first remedy, then, when the haunting thought of death comes to shroud our little term of being with melancholy, is to take up with eagerness again the duties and responsibilities of life. In doing these the sense of life, and necessarily the sense of joy, will begin again to thrill within us; things which cannot die and are gifted with the power of convincing us of their innate immortality-love, justice, truth, and purity-become ours by the doing of them, and weave their divine eternity into our being. We look to Christ, and the two sources of the melancholy of which we speak-the idea of our work perishing, the idea of a cessation of the growth of knowledge-vanish away. He died, it is true, when half the natural sands of life were run. But we see that his labour has not died with Him. It has passed as a power and life into the world. While He lived, his words and deeds were

only forcible and productive in Palestine. Now that He has passed from earth, they have pervaded nations. And our work done in his spirit has the same infinite quality. It does not cease with our breath. It lives and moves in other men. It is handed on from generation to generation in a tradition of action, accumulating force from the new human power which different men have added to it. Being done in union with the eternal humanity of Christ, it belongs to and suits developing mankind—nay, more, it developes with mankind. All we have to do is to do it now with all our heart, and soul, and strength, looking unto Jesus; and we may rejoice that not one shred of it is lost.

Our echoes flow from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Moreover, we are also freed in Christ from the second source of this sadness, the idea that our knowledge shall cease to grow. For in Him we are ourselves immortal, and the work which we have started, and left to others here, we carry on ourselves in the larger world beyond. But if so, it will require added knowledge, and indeed in its progress it will necessarily store up knowledge. In Christ, we know then that we shall never cease to learn, to investigate, to add to our stock of knowledge, and therefore to our stock of power.

Masters of a divine hope, we escape from the shadow of this melancholy. We watch the sands running away and listen to the passing bell, if not with joy, at least with a new growth of resolution in the soul. And in cheerful effort, and in fortitude of heart, we pass out